Is that thistle a friendly native or a nasty invasive? Would you like to know the easy way to rid your yard of that awful bull thistle? Do you know how to report the musk thistle you saw while walking your dog?

If you’d like to learn all this and more, then grab your favorite weeding tool (and some thick gloves), and join the Trails Club on Saturday, July 9 for our annual thistle workshop and weed pull atop the ski hill.

At this event you’ll learn to identify two invasive thistle species (bull and musk ), and to distinguish them from our native Anderson’s thistle. Along the way we’ll cover an effective and easy technique to eradicate bull thistle from your yard.

Then we’ll turn our attention to the old musk thistle infestation growing around the top of the Eagle Rock lift. The Trails Club has made considerable progress controlling this infestation the last few years, but there’s still much work to be done.

As always, we’ll be pulling mature, second year plants (a prickly and sometimes difficult job), and hunting for immature, first year rosettes (easy to pull, but rather tricky to find).

– Meeting Place: The gate to the Cell Tower on Skislope Way. (Google Map.) People often have trouble finding this spot. The gate’s GPS coordinates are 39.3468, -120.2637, or if you prefer an address 14668 Ski Slope Way will get you close.

– What to bring: Plenty of water and your favorite weeding tool. Small round point shovels, heavy-duty garden trowels, and hori-hori digging knives are especially recommended, but any weeding implement will work just fine. We will have extra tools on hand if needed.

– RSVP: Though we will bring extra, to assure that we have enough pamphlets and handouts for everyone, an RSVP is requested. Please email the club at tdtrails@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

Bull thistle is the most common invasive weed in Tahoe Donner, and musk thistle is one of the worst invasive weeds in the region. If you’d like to learn more about invasive weeds in general, and these thistles in particular, we hope you will join us for this workshop and weed pull.